WTI tumbles to lows around $50.50, USD gathers pace

The selling pressure around crude oil prices is now gathering momentum, sending the barrel of West Texas Intermediate back to sub-$51.00 levels, or daily lows.

WTI weaker on USD-buying

The demand for the greenback has quickly intensified today, sending the USD-denominated assets to lower levels and the US Dollar Index to advance to fresh multi-month peaks.

Prices for the WTI are shedding more than 2% so far today, deflating from fresh 2016 tops in levels just below the $52.00 mark seen on Wednesday in response to unexpected decrease in crude inventories as reported by the API and EIA.

In the meantime, the stronger greenback and scepticism around the deal to freeze oil output at the next OPEC meeting in Vienna remains the exclusive driver behind the price action of crude oil.

It is worth recalling that according to the latest CFTC report, WTI speculative net longs have reached levels last seen in July 2014 above 413K contracts during the week ended on October 11. Back to the day, the WTI was trading above the $100 mark per barrel.

WTI levels to consider

At the moment the barrel of WTI is retreating 2.10% at $50.73 and a breach of $49.15 (low Oct.10) would expose $49.10 (20-day sma) and finally $46.71 (55-day sma). On the other hand, the next up move aligns at $51.93 (2016 high Oct.19) followed by $53.89 (high Jul.10 2015) and then $62.58 (high May 6 2015).